HARDIN: There is No Technological Solution

We
live in an age of rapid technological development. Our lives change
in response to each new invention, but does technology really make
our lives better, or do we consistently sacrifice our quality of
life and ecological sustainability to support and encourage new
technology? Through science fiction we explore our fear that one day
super-intelligent robots will enslave humanity, but in reality we’ve been slaves to technology since the invention of the plow and
the aqueduct.

Our
steadfast, unwavering commitment to technology has only deepened our
addiction to it. Our minds have become so dominated by technology
that we’ve learned to think of ourselves as machines. We use
mechanical logic to convince ourselves to ignore the strong
emotional signals our bodies send us about what has become of our
lives. Dissatisfaction with a technological lifestyle can lead to a
lot of emotions, like anxiety, despondence, depression, rage, etc,
that can be difficult to comprehend, especially if you try to be
logical about it. When that doesn’t work, we can diagnose these
uncomfortable feelings as a mental illness, and treat your condition
technologically, with drugs.

Only
sound mechanical logic, untainted by primitive emotions can be
considered truly sane in our modern high-tech culture. Could
super-intelligent robots possibly enslave us more completely? We’ve
turned humanity into willing servants of technology, desperate to
sacrifice the planet, and our remaining time upon it, to produce
that mythical super-intelligent robot in the vain hope that it will
somehow save us from ourselves.

That’s
the truth behind our madness. We have a vague sense of
dissatisfaction, depression and dread about it, but we no longer
have any way of understanding those feelings. Logically we know that
we must press forward, because the next technological advance can
change everything, this time, for the better, we hope. In the
meantime, we’ll amuse ourselves with every new toy that comes along.

There
are no super-intelligent robots in our technological future.
Technology won’t destroy us by becoming smarter than us, technology
will destroy us by making us dumber than it. Technology will
completely eradicate human intelligence, if it hasn’t done so
already, leaving nothing but crass consumerism and marketing
statistics in its wake. As we’ve watched the ascendancy of
technology in rapt amazement, our culture has devolved and been
reshaped to serve corporate capitalism. Based entirely on crass
consumption, we inhabit a completely dysfunctional, totally
destructive and universally traumatic culture that exudes toxicity
in every form. But hey, don’t we have some cool toys?

Technology
won’t save us. Technology is killing us and making us wish we were
dead. Mechanical logic is not intelligence, and thinking logically
is not intelligent. Logic has no vision, and logic has no heart.
Logic does not rule the universe and logic does not dictate how we
should live our lives. Logic is a human faculty useful in
constructing contraptions and traps — and now we’re caught in one — but there is much more to human intelligence.

Real
human intelligence is concerned with building culture, not machines.
How you live, how you treat other people and how you raise your kids
matters a hell of a lot more than what kind of machines you have. We
probably could solve some of the intractable social and ecological
problems our mindless devotion to machines has created, by looking
for cultural, rather than technological solutions, but I’m not even
sure we know how to use those muscles anymore.

Technology
has failed us. The myriad array of electronic gadgets at our
disposal only distract us from the bitter truth about our wretched
condition. If we do, somehow, save humanity from self-induced
extinction, we won’t do it by fleeing our own pollution to infest
another planet with our poisonous technology; we will do it by
rebuilding a life-affirming culture here on Earth.